The college basketball season officially kicks off on November 9, which is less than two weeks away, and the first month always features a vast array of fascinating non-conference matchups on the national landscape.

Last month, Sports Illustrated college hoops writer Luke Winn detailed how some crafty high-major coaches, such as Pitt’s Jamie Dixon, are boosting their RPI non-conference strength of schedule by playing upper-tier mid- and low-major teams. Games against those squads, with their high win totals and solid RPI numbers, are more beneficial than contests against the lower-tier schools in power conferences, Winn shows. The schools on the other end of that spectrum, the little RPI boosters who are brought into these hostile road environments, aren’t exactly complaining about the strategy, either.

“I love it,” Davidson senior forward Jake Cohen says. “It gets us prepared for conference play. Those kind of challenges are stuff we haven’t seen before, going to tough places, a lot of times to their home court, in front of their crowds on the roads, that kind of experience is invaluable for us.”

Last season, the Wildcats played Duke, Vanderbilt and Kansas in the first two months, then went on to win the Southern Conference regular-season crown with a 16-2 league record and claimed the tournament title before losing by just seven points to Louisville—a team that eventually made the Final Four—in their NCAA Tournament opener.

And, oh yeah, they beat Kansas—a team that made it all the way to the national championship game against Kentucky—in Kansas City. “We played Duke earlier, and we were there at the door but couldn’t walk in,” junior De’Mon Brooks says. “Against Kansas, we walked in. That’s when I feel our team showed we could really finish a game. It doesn’t matter who we play. Just go out and play our game. It just showed last year how talented we were, and how we could really do it.”

The Wildcats will again be a formidable team. Coach Bob McKillop’s teams always play fundamental basketball and tenacious defense, and there’s more talent on this team than any since the Stephen Curry era. Figuring out Davidson’s best player is just about impossible; last season, Cohen was voted SoCon player of the year by the media, and the coaches named Brooks player of the year.

This season, the Wildcats have games scheduled with New Mexico and Duke, and in the Old Spice Classic, they could see any combination of Vanderbilt, West Virginia, Gonzaga, Clemson and Oklahoma, depending on how the bracket plays out.

“Playing those teams, being in that atmosphere, there’s nothing like that,” Brooks says. “And, it also prepares us for conference play and for March. When you have your back against the wall, that’s when you’re really tested, as a team. That goes a long way. It may not show then, but it shows in the long run.”

Here’s a look at five more quality low- and mid-major teams who play several of these mutually-beneficial games this season:

Detroit

The skinny: Future NBA draft pick Ray McCallum is back for his junior season after leading the Titans to the Horizon League tournament title last season. With this brutal slate of non-conference games, he’ll get the chance to prove to NBA scouts he’s worthy of a first-round pick. No better way to do that than to engineer an upset or two.

Belmont

The skinny: Coach Rick Byrd’s Bruins have been to the NCAA Tournament five of the past seven years, and they’re no stranger to difficult schedules. The preparation of playing in hostile non-conference environments will be even more important this season; they’ve moved from the Sun Belt to the Ohio Valley Conference, which means pretty much every league game will be in a new atmosphere.

Long Beach State

The skinny: OK, with four starters gone, including star Casper Ware, the 49ers probably won’t approach last season’s 25 wins, but their schedule can’t be ignored here. Coach Don Monson loves the “iron sharpens iron” theory—the 49ers had the No. 2 non-conference strength of schedule, according to kenpom.com—and this year’s schedule is no different.

UNC-Asheville

The skinny: The Bulldogs lost a pair of 1,000-point scorers in Matt Dickey and J.P. Primm, but coach Eddie Biedenbach’s team always is a Big South contender. And with this schedule, they’ll be battle-tested entering conference play.